INDIANAPOLIS – Manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey got the call Monday, elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.
Herzog and Harvey missed by one vote in their previous tries. This time, they easily drew enough support to reach Cooperstown.
“I don’t think I would’ve had my heart broken if I’d missed by another vote or two. But I’m damn happy it’s over,” Herzog said at Busch Stadium.
“It was just in the last few years when I was only missing by a few votes that I thought, maybe I do deserve it,” he said.
Among those who came close this year was former players’ union head Marvin Miller. He was on a separate slate for executives and officials, and fell two votes short.
Herzog was a fixture in major league dugouts for two decades. He won the 1982 World Series and three NL pennants with the St. Louis Cardinals and three division titles with Kansas City. He became the 19th manager to make the hall.
“I think he was one of the guys who started managers looking at doing more creative things,” said Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith, one of Herzog’s star players. “You’d see him take a relief pitcher and put him in right field.”
Smith was a late addition to the 16-member panel that considered managers and umpires. Candidates needed 12 votes (75 percent) to make it, and Herzog got 14 in voting Sunday at the baseball winter meetings. Results were announced Monday, and the 78-year-old Herzog was told he was in.
It made for an odd pairing, Herzog getting in alongside an umpire. In 1985, a missed call by ump Don Denkinger in Game 6 of the World Series damaged the Cardinals’ chances of winning another championship. (AP)